The great “carnitas crisis” of 2015 is officially over, as pork is now back at 90% of fast food chain Chipotle’s locations.
The company said in a statement Monday that issues with the pork supply for its popular shredded pork item have been resolved. Chipotle plans to have carnitas back in all its restaurants by the end of November.
Some Chipotle restaurants in Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina will take the longest to receive carnitas.
Chipotle dropped a primary pork vendor in January after it was found that the supplier failed to meet the restaurant’s standards. Chipotle requires its suppliers to raise pigs with access to the outdoors or deeply bedded barns. It also bans the use of antibiotics, and with no gestation crates. The supplier violated one or more of these protocols.
“The decision to stop selling Carnitas in many of our restaurants was an easy one,” said Steve Ells, co-CEO at Chipotle, in a statement. “We simply will not compromise our high standards for animal welfare.”
The carnitas shortages caused Chipotle to stop serving the product at more than one-third of its outlets. At the time, industry analysts speculated that the shortage could hinder the company’s expansion plans of opening as many as 205 new restaurants this year in an attempt to hit around 2,000 outlets in total. Chipotle has since engaged U.K.-based Karro Food as its pork supplier.
Upon hearing the news, some fans of Chipotle celebrated on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/carlquintanilla/status/648493812533325825
https://twitter.com/Maraboulove/status/648489235897561092